ACTS retreats mark 25th year of sharing

'You become vulnerable and open yourself up.'

By Abe Levy :
September 21, 2012
: Updated: September 21, 2012 8:33pm

Joe Hayes (from left), Ed Courtney and Marty Sablik, credited with founding the popular Catholic retreat program ACTS, visit at a Jim’s Restaurant as they did a quarter-century ago.

Photo By Billy Calzada/San Antonio Express-News

Joe Hayes, left, and Ed Courtney chat with Marty Sablik, who is not in this picture, at Jim's Restaurant on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. They are credited with founding the popular Catholic retreat program ACTS many years ago.

Photo By Billy Calzada/San Antonio Express-News

Marty Sablik chat friends Joe Hayes and Ed Courtney at Jim's Restaurant on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. They are credited with founding the popular Catholic retreat program ACTS many years ago.

In a Jim's Restaurant a quarter-century ago, three Catholic men modified a well-worn model for spiritual retreats.

They sat in a booth and hammered out a program of inward renewal, open to non-Catholics and spurring the faithful to invest more in their individual parishes.

Ed Courtney, Joe Hayes and Marty Sablik never imagined their idea — the popular ACTS retreat — would go viral over the next 25 years. More than 450,000 people have made a retreat around the world in North and Central America, Europe and South Africa. There are ACTS chapters in 22 states and 500-plus parishes, according to ACTS statistics.

It is headquartered on the campus of Oblate School of Theology and has 12 employees. Its affiliated foundation has raised scholarship money for low-income applicants to pay for retreat fees.

“This grew beyond our wildest dreams,” said Hayes of Selma's Our Lady of Perpetual Help, where the first retreat was held. “We just thought we had a nice retreat for our parish. It's just evolved. The Holy Spirit and a lot of people have been at work.”

ACTS is a three-day retreat usually held at a site away from the local parish. It was named for the four topics it covers: adoration, community, theology and service.

Testimonials have ranged from saved marriages to addiction recovery. They have boosted the ranks of Catholic deacons and turned religious skeptics and lapsed Catholics into believers again. The founders have credited the Holy Spirit for the idea, hailed as one of the more effective approaches to inspiring Catholics to be active in their parishes.

The three founders were active with the Cursillo retreat movement, founded by Catholics in Spain during the 1940s. It spread to North America as a popular course on renewing the Christian faith. The ACTS founders credit their Cursillo experience for reinvigorating their spiritual lives.

However, they favored a program that accepted non-Catholics, especially spouses, and based its work on parishes organizing the retreats through lay leadership. Presentations are followed by table discussions, which often lead to lasting bonds between parishioners.

“One major difference is that after every talk, we have a discussion,” Sablik said. “And then every table gets up and shares what the discussion was about. Some of the witnessing by the tables is very distinctive.”

Retreats begin with a bus ride usually on a Thursday evening from the parish to a retreat center. It ends on Sunday morning with a Mass. During the retreat, there are talks around tables and by guest speakers. Letters from loved ones, written before the retreat, are read. A leadership team of lay parishioners meet well beforehand to fashion a meaningful experience.

“When you do an ACTS retreat, you become vulnerable and open yourself up,” said Joe Hemmi, executive director of the ACTS Retreat Foundation. “People see who you really are. We are divine beings having human experiences. We put forth a false persona, but God already made us beautiful. When we start realizing that everybody goes through the same pain and experiences, then we allow ourselves to drop down the things we were trying to protect.”

Bumper stickers and ACTS jewelry often provoke questions about retreats. But ACTS graduates vow to decline spreading most specifics about their experience. The code of confidentiality extends even to spouses. It's by design.

The personal nature of the format is similar to addiction recovery programs. But the vague response is also the marketing strategy, ACTS leaders said, creating curiosity and mystery and a sort of positive peer pressure to experience a retreat for one's self.

“They have no idea what the experience will be,” Hayes said. “We want them to come with an open mind.”